Publish Date: March 31, 1930
Cover Story: Pinch of Salt
How TIME Covered the News: With his famed doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience, Mohandas Gandhi — known as “Mahtama” or the great one — became a hero for Indians yearning to throw off the yoke of the British Empire. His peaceful protests inflamed nationalist feeling throughout the Subcontinent. In 1930, he led the Salt Satyagraha, a march against the British salt tax in India, for which he walked 200 miles to the coast to sift salt directly from the sea, gathering thousands of protesters along the way.
“When Mr. Gandhi should reach the sea, when he should defy the British salt monopoly, when he should break British law by scooping up a little sea water and publicly evaporating it to recover a mere pinch of salt—what then? Would enough Indians respond to this, the agreed signal for nonviolent, mass civil disobedience? Would they obey the Mahatma, abstain from paying taxes, abstain from all obedience to British employers or superiors, buy no British cloth, and pray that they may meet Death all innocent and nonresisting at British hands?”